


Things We Lost in The Fire

by GoldStarGrl



Category: Psych
Genre: Angst, Fire, Grief, Post-Series, Season 8, The Lassiters live in the Spencers House remember?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldStarGrl/pseuds/GoldStarGrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Death doesn't happen to you. It happens to everyone around you. All the people left standing at your funeral, wondering how they're going to live the rest of their lives - without you in it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Burton Guster thought he had a firm handle on death.

All his life, his parents, teachers, priests had talked to him, sat down and explained how no one is meant for this Earth forever, and that that was OK. How his dog and grandparents and sickly cousin Danny were all in a better place now that they were gone. He'd seen countless husbands and wives and children and siblings being ushered away from crime scenes, still walking tall, learning with every step how to survive losing a loved one.

But nothing prepared him for this.

Nobody had taught him how to lose part of himself.

He couldn't drive anymore. The seat next to him was too empty.

He couldn't sleep either. He woke up half a dozen times every night, smelling imaginary smoke and sulfur. He twisted over to see his cell phone dark and silent, no text messages or excited voicemails buzzing and pulling him from his nightmares.

Three weeks after it happened, he finally dragged himself out of bed and made the long walk to the Psych office to pack up.

It was empty and still. Nothing had been moved since the morning they had left for the case. The day the bomb had sparked in the police station's wires and brought down the roof in a wave of fire.

His desk was a mess, as usual. Gus set the small cardboard box in it's center, picking up a stress ball and dropping it in. He slowly forced himself to clear the surface, to pack away snow globes and a signed picture of Val Kilmer.

His hands closed around a small keychain. It was scented, and shaped like a pineapple, stolen from a dollar store in Anaheim a few years before.

His grip tightened. His stomach started to feel tight and hot.

Before he knew what he was doing, he had wound up and thrown the stupid toy against the wall. It cracked and two pieces of plastic clattered to the floor.

He reached into the box and took out the snow globe, whipping it against the door with a loud crash.

"You're so fucking selfish, Shawn!" He screamed. It was loudest and longest he had spoken in weeks. He picked up stuffed animals, pictures, everything he could reach, and smashed them as fast as he could. "You always do this! You think you can just leave! Leave me! Fuck you!"

His legs buckled and he fell to his knees. Tears were streaming down his face before he hit the floor.

"Oh my God. Oh my God, Shawn. Oh my God."

He sobbed on the stupid, sticky floor until his voice gave up on him.

No one had ever taught Gus how to die in halves.


	2. Chapter 2

She had heard dark jokes about it since she joined the force.

The hazards of being a cop's wife. How everyday you worried he would leave for work and never come home.

She had always thought she was safe from that ridiculous, vaguely sexist "curse".

After all, she was the one who carried a gun and handcuffs, who chased dangerous people down alleys: If any of her relationships ended in tragedy, it would be _her_ doing.

She took a sip of her beer, the third she had opened that day. She used to hate the taste. Now it numbed the pain of her broken arm, and everything else.

Because every cell in her body ached, from burns and stiff muscles and all consuming, overpowering sadness.

_No. Pull it together, do your job. Don't you dare cry._

She swallowed hard and tucked her hair behind her ears. She had to get this done. Karen was submitting the insurance claims tomorrow.

She started at the top of her creamy stationary, printing neatly with her colored gel pens. What had been destroyed in the fire.

  *  _1 computer and monitor (PC)_
  * _1 eight-drawer balsa wood desk_
  * _1 OfficeComfort swivel chair_



She looked down at the words for a long time. Three lines was what she came up with, to say what those hideous flames had taken from her.

She wrapped her hands around each other. Her engagement ring poked the flesh of her right palm. It felt like a stab in the heart.

No amount of insurance money would fix her biggest loss.

Tears welled but she denied them, digging her fingernails into the paper, tearing at the blue ink.

She forced deep breaths in and out until she felt stable again. But she couldn't control the thought that ran relentlessly through her head.

_This is sick. This isn't right. This isn't fair._

She was the cop.

Why was she also the widow?

* * *

 

He used to like the quiet.

For someone who spent his 90% of the day reciting monologues to criminals he didn't know, he really wasn't much of talker. He was happiest when he was left alone, allowed to sit in a calm station and silently daydream about guns and his wife and enforcing California state laws and addendums.

Shawn Spencer had never shared this view.

He had lost count of the migraines that man-boy had given him, wailing and singing and shrieking, kicking in doors and pounding on interrogation room glass.

There had been nights where he prayed to every saint from Andrew to Zepherin that someone would get that loud, obnoxious, hurricane of a human being out of his life.

Now, he'd give up every gun he had ever owned just to hear one more Billy Zane reference.

Karen practically forced him at gunpoint to take sick leave. The fire had burned the right side of his face and the falling debris crushed his right leg. All day he was stuck hobbling around in his quiet house, the house that had once been the Spencers'.

A week after it happened, Marlowe made him breakfast and then took Lily to play group. She lingered over him and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"Please eat something." She whispered, in a badly disguised plea. He nodded stiffly, minutely, as she hitched their daughter onto her hip and headed out the door.

He poked around his eggs and opened the paper, rustling the pages loudly to distract himself. One page caught under his saucer and his eyes fell on the columns. He froze.

**Obituaries**

_SPENCER, Shawn J. of Santa Barbara, passed away June 8th, 2014 in a tragic fire at the Santa Barbara Police Station. He was 37.  
A private detective of almost a decade, he is survived by parents Henry Spencer and Dr. Madeline Spencer, and fiancée Juliet O'Hara._

A million thoughts and twice as many fragmented emotions ran through his head in the time it took to read those four sentences. His mouth felt dry.

Four lines. Four lines was all someone like Shawn Spencer got in the newspaper. Two sentences about how it ended. Fifteen words for his parents and almost-wife.

As if two sentences encapsulated every single thing Shawn had done and been.

As if fifteen stinking words was going to do anything to alleviate the pain.

And what about Guster? The Chief? McNab? What acknowledgment, what comfort was given to the people who hadn't given birth to or slept with him, but lived with him and fought for him and loved him against their better judgement?

What about Carlton?

He tore the page to shreds and let the scraps fall on his congealed eggs.

The quiet that answered was the last thing he needed now.


	3. Chapter 3

The wake had been the work of Marlowe.

She's always been a shrewd and perceptive woman, and her time in the slammer had only increased her ability to see through other people's bullshit and facades. She'd grown exhausted and upset watching those she loved lock themselves away, alone, and crumble. She made a few calls and gathered those she needed outside Karen's house, which was being used as a de facto SBPD base until the damage to the station could be repaired.

She had offered, to his parents, to hold a memorial in the living room of the house they had both called home. Madeline accepted gratefully. Through her tears, Dr. Spencer told Henry and all the others how it would offer closure, a chance to celebrate the full, rich extent of her son's life, not just mourn it's ending.

_Her son's life._

It is a terrible crime against nature, for parents to bury their children.

It was held in late afternoon, a month after the fire, once the survivors had healed enough to make the trip. People milled around the first floor of the house, eating cold cuts off of folding tables and talking quietly.

They came from all walks of life, hippies, businessman, astronauts, cops and gymnasts, soap opera stars, nuns, fast food workers and even a congressman. It was incredible, how many people Shawn had touched, both through his work and in his years traversing the country.

Juliet's black dress was itching her, too long and thick for the summer heat. It was the only one she owned besides a very tight, strapless one, which she didn't think would be appropriate, no matter how much Shawn himself would've loved it.

She resisted the urge to tear off the hem as she sat on the couch between Maddy and Henry, accepting condolences. They held hands behind her head, their knuckles white.

Marlowe kept fidgeting with the stack of cups and bowl of fruit salad, her eyes darting to each face in the room and gauging their emotional state. Every five minutes she unsuccessfully tried to get Carlton out of the kitchen, where he was sulking and disassembling and reassembling his gun, over and over. Gus cried uncontrollably in the chair against the wall, clutching some bottle of booze to his chest like a teddy bear. Juliet's head was pounding.

A big black-and-white photo was propped up on the center of the room. It was Shawn, sitting on the steps of the police station the summer before, two Rocket Pops in his hand. He was grinning like he had won the lottery.

God, that smile. As in life, his grin was inveigling, drawing Juliet's eyes like a magnet. It was swallowing everything else, it's light overpowering her.

And suddenly the room felt too small. It was hot and there were too many people and they were all looking at her with pitying glances, like they knew she, the poor fiancée, wasn't going to bounce back from this.

She stood up abruptly, banging into the coffee table, almost tipping it over. A hush fell over the gathered crowd. Carlton poked his head into the room in alarm. The Spencers looked stricken. Marlowe caught her before she could stumble any farther.

"Are you OK?"

"I...I just need to go to the bathroom." Her voice cracked on the last word and she ran for the stairs, ignoring Marlowe's worried look to her husband and Gus' tortured sob, trying to get somewhere, anywhere else.

A door was open a crack on the second floor, and she ran in, slamming it shut behind her.

It was a bedroom. A bedroom stuck between two owners.

A crib was in the corner but a queen sized bed still sat in the middle. One wall was painted lavender while the other three were covered in movie posters and pictures of cars and awful blue wallpaper.

Lily's room. Shawn's room.

She sat down on the bed, doubling over, struggling for breath. She reached for her gun and tried to pull it apart, calm herself down like Lassiter did, but her hands were shaking too hard.

She could smell him.

He hadn't slept there in twenty years, but she could still smell him in the sheets, like candy and cheap cologne. On the nightstand was a picture of him and Gus on the pier, around thirteen years old. He was tan and grinning, that bright, stupid, grin.

His whole life was ahead of him.

And suddenly she was crying. Really, really sobbing. Her wails wracked her body before she could even think about stopping them. She crumbled, curled into a ball on her dead fiancée's bed, tears staining the He-Man sheets.

The door creaked open behind her.

"O'Hara."

Carlton closed the door and lay down on the bed next to her. Hastily wiping her eyes, she turned over so they were side by side and flat on their backs. They said nothing, staring up at the ceiling.

"I've been having trouble putting Lily to bed in here." He admitted finally. "I...I think it's because I _miss_ him."

"Me too." She was horrified at how tearful her voice sounded when she spoke. She couldn't let anyone see her like this, especially not Carlton.

But he just laced their fingers together and squeezed her hand, his big blue eyes staring seriously into her own.

"I am so sorry, Juliet." He called her by her first name for the second time ever. It sounded stiff and uncomfortable and she wanted him to take it back. She wanted to be O'Hara again, dealing with snarky arguments and boring cases and Shawn laughing at it all...

She let out a strangled gulp. Carlton pulled her close so she lay against his broad torso. She could feel his chest on her forehead, his breaths shaking and choppy.

They stayed awkwardly sprawled out there until door opened again several minutes later. Carlton couldn't be bothered to lift or even turn his head, but Juliet saw Gus standing in the doorway, the bottle clutched in his hands. His face was still slick with tears.

"M-move over."

He sat down on her other side. He held the bottle out in front of him, above Carlton and Juliet's heads.

"Some idiot downstairs gave this to me. As a 'small token of condolence'." He paused. Then- "He hated champagne. He said it felt like an unauthorized fireworks display in his stomach."

"...I remember." Carlton's words came slow, onto Juliet's hair. "He had a juice box at my wedding."

Gus nodded, his lips in a strange, flat line. Juliet took his hand in her free one, making long, slow strokes down his palm with her thumb.

"'Because, Jules, it reminds me of an incident in Mexico.'" She mimicked, lowering her scratchy voice. "'It's a tale of discount sparklers, unlawful bullfighters, and-"

"'-A dancer named Maranga.'" Carlton and Gus cut in simultaneously. All three looked at each other.

And then they started to laugh.

"Do-do you remember the time he got up on the bar at Ladies' Night and sang 'Bohemian Rhapsody'?" Juliet asked, her chest feeling warm for the first time in weeks. Gus smiled and Carlton rolled his eyes.

"He got through two goddamn verses before McNab tackled him."

Juliet giggled, her mouth feeling stiff with the effort. Gus lay down next to her, shaking his head.

The three talked for a long time, just little, stupid stories. About growing up with him, working with him, loving him.

The sun was setting when Gus sat up and popped the bottle open.

"To Shawn." He said, raising it above his head.

"Shawn."

"To Spencer."

They passed it back and forth, taking swigs from the bottle until it was empty. The champagne was warm and flat now, but still sweet.

Henry and Madeline were whispering, possibly crying softly, on the front porch. Carlton could hear the creak of the floorboard as Marlowe walked Lily back and forth across the kitchen floor, lulling her to sleep as the rest of the guests trickled out and the lights flickered off. 

Soon it was only the three of them, lying on Shawn's bed with heads buzzing. Outside his window, the stars shone like a million silver pinpricks in a blue cloth of night.

Juliet turned her head to look at them, still curled up against Carlton's chest, her legs tangled up in Gus'. His brown eyes looked wet again.

"He's never going to see these stars." He whispered, a tremor in his voice again.

"It's two AM. Spencer wouldn't be up this early if God himself commanded it." Carlton pointed out. Gus conceded his point, his face steadying again.

"We're going to survive this." Juliet said, and the squabbling fell silent. Her voice was stronger than she was, commanding. As though she was declaring it law. "We are."

They held each other tighter, and prayed for the storm to do it's worst, for the rain to subdue the flames.


End file.
